her spine was impossible to ignore.
âIâll be-be-be up by then, A-A-Aidan. Swear,â Arran told him.
âI ken as much. In the meantime, enjoy your rest. And your company.â
âSo . . . wh-wh-what do you w-w-want to talk of?â Arranâs stutter was even more pronounced when he looked at her through the talking. It took a while to get the sentence out. Juliana calmly waited, with her head cocked and her hands folded atop her knees, giving him her full attention.
âOh . . . weâre going to talk of your eldest brother,â she replied. âWhat else?â
Arran was looking over her shoulder at his brother. She didnât have to check. She knew.
Chapter 6
Juliana attended the burial and consecration, despite every effort at avoiding it. She hadnât much choice, since her captor seemed to know everywhere she was, and when. Even now he hovered at her side, making certain of her attendance. She wasnât singled out, since sheâd heard him order them all there, but it felt like it.
Usually in the aftermath of battle, the dead were buried where they fell. Or the bodies were burned. Or left to rot. Or displayed as a warning.
Juliana sighed. Nothing was usual about this. Thanks to her talk with Arran, she knew the difference. And she knew why.
Arran MacKetryck had been a font of information without asking for any of it. Once he got some food and three tankards of ale into him anyway. Heâd spent the morn and into the afternoon regaling her with stories, and heâd lost most of his stuttering as well.
Juliana now knew MacKetryck land was north of Inverness, well away from any wars and conflicts over the Scot throne. They didnât worry over who claimed kingship since the Norman line died away. Could be John Balliol for all they cared, although the rebellion had faltered, leaving Dunbar Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, and Perth Castles in English hands; could be Robert Bruce, although heâd lost the great cause five years earlier in the vote for Balliol. The fact that it was now King Edward taking, and killing in the taking, was just further reason to avoid the Sassenach.
Arran rarely heard of such doings. In the Highlands, land and property were a fluid affair and always fought over. One man claiming total rule meant little. Proving the rule was what mattered. Aside from which, the best challenge and win was over another Highland clan. Always. Anything else was of little value. This included English-held properties, with the effeminate, overpowdered, and frilled lords and sheriffs that owned them. English landowners were detested. As were any Lowlanders that welcomed them.
So it was with Clan MacKetryck.
They hailed from the farthest reaches north, from a bastion called Castle Ketryck. It was named after some forebearer, whoâd killed a Viking king in order to possess it. Arran didnât remember the Viking kingâs name and Juliana had stopped him from yelling for Aidan to get the information. It didnât matter. All that mattered to her was time passing.
According to Arran, the name âKetryckâ had been changed sometime in the past to the surname âMacKetryck,â since the âMacâ stood for âson of.â Juliana hadnât known that. She didnât know much about Highlanders at all. With her upbringing, it wasnât possible to come into contact with one of them long enough to learn any of this.
As the only daughter of Baron DâAubenville, and heiress to all his holdings, Juliana had been well above any contact with them. Previously.
So Juliana nodded and frowned and listened or pretended to listen, and all the while she felt the time passing. A weight of time. A solid thickness of time. A whole span of time that no one could gain back. Her father would be awake in his grave if he knew where his daughter was and with whom.
If theyâd put him in a grave after displaying him atop Fyfen